Untitled - Smithsonian Institution

oirBKCHTs] I'HE SWIMMER MANUSCRIPT 215
})lowing is also from the breast downward along the abdomen.
The whole operation should be repeated four times at each treatment,
but as the formula as here given consists of but three parts, it
seems probable [that a fourth paragraph has been lost in the course
of time].
While uiider treatment the patient only drinks soup or the decoc-
tion, but no water, which for some reason unexplained is believed to
bring the worms to life again, when they are said to be more troublesome
than at first. Eggs are tabooed for the same reason, and all
greasy food is prohibited.
The formula opens with a short address to the Fire, "The Old
White One," in which the medicine man declares that the patient's
body, spoken of under the figurative term of "clay," is filled with
pain, and pregnant with yo"sywa' a word which the medicine men
can not now explain [but which is very probably connected with
do^'su, "weak"].
The word for worms u'ntozf'ya (sgl. uDZf'ya) is also applied to the
common earthworm, which renders peculiarly appropriate the use of
the figurative term "clay" to designate the body.*^
After having addressed the Fire, while warming his hands the
medicine man goes on to invoke vaiious long-billed swamp birds,
which feed upon worms, telling each in turn to put his bill into the
muddy ooze and pull out the intruder, which "is just what you eat."
In this case the mythic color of the birds is white, which is not to be
understood as their actual color.
[Og. told Mr. Mooney that he used a similar formula but a slightly
different prescription to cure this ailment; in addition to Indian pink
he used ym'skwuDo"' tsi;nstt*'Ga (small buckeye). This does not grow
on the Cherokee Reservation, but somewhere in Tennessee, and only
one old medicine man, u*sa'wi(?), who lived about 15 years ago, knew
where to find it, and was sent for it whenever it was needed. No
informant was able to identify the plant during my stay in 1926-27.]
33
*t'a' Ganani;"'GO'tstD'}-'!i vne'^sta-'neH yt'ki a'na'nc/wo't'i' |
this it appears about, H they have pain, if it is to cure anyone with
App.
SGe'* V-no"''Gw5''' *a t'yrja'ni'Ga' tst-ya' wo''ttG€'°'
Now, then!
I
hal now thou hast come to listen Otter brown
i;"9DZ0-'-yt"-DZ0°' DltS'i'tlt'o'tSti I
SO'GWO'"
D€-'nutsGo'tlanfGa' I
cold, Loc, direction thou art staying one thou and I have become one
** E'lyWt'tstosiiM may be a contraction of: e'la (=clay) uwe'tstosoJi (it has been
made painful), as Mr. Mooney interprets it. During my stay no medicine man
was able to give any information on this expression, nor did anyone remember
whether the body was ever referred to by this metaphor. None of the myths
throw any light on the question. I am inclined to believe that the e'l- prefix is
not an abbreviation of eda, clay, but a contamination of oyedo", body.